Why I'm choosing a planned c-section and not a VBAC.

I honestly never thought I'd be writing something like this.

With my son, I wanted an unmedicated, natural birth.

(Yes, I still use the term "natural" and don't find it in the slightest bit offensive. It is natural to give birth through your vagina with no medication and not have the baby cut out of you - people are waaaaaay too sensitive about this. From someone who has had a c-section, ain’t nothing natural about that shit, but that’s another blog post)

I even wanted a home birth.

I wanted no interventions and I was completely enamoured by the idea of a totally natural, active birth.

I read all the books, did all the courses, saw all the documentaries and dutifully imbibed the hysteria around how everyone is trying to medicalize birth.

So I never, in my wildest dreams thought I'd be talking about c-sections - least of all an elective one.

But here I am.

Things didn't go to plan. Turns out, my body, for one reason or another, didn't do the things I was told it was "meant to" know how to do.

That I was "born to do".

Here’s a quick low-down of how my first rodeo went:

At 41+5 I was starting to panic. I drank a good dose of castor oil (on my homebirth midwife’s recommendation, and after having drank litres of raspberry leaf tea for months on end, and doing several sessions of acupuncture and reflexology to induce labour “naturally” - as well as sex, long walks, spinning babies, eating dates and spicy foods… you name it…)

My water broke that night, but no contractions (I hadn’t even had a single Braxton Hicks). I wasn’t sure I was feeling movements, went to the hospital, and (VERY) reluctantly got induced.

30 hours later (4 hours of which I had an epidural, and so 26 of which were spent “active”) I still hadn’t dilated even 2cms. I was exhausted and it was time to get him out.

There are still those who will argue that had I done X or had they not done Y, I would, of course, had been able to have a natural birth.

Indeed, I was inundated by such comments from colleagues, friends, my doula and one of the midwives.